30 September 2010

The guys and gals that work in the district station have a crappy job, specifically the desk crew. The phones ring constantly, people walk in looking for reports, prisoners just released need their property returned, the bond desk and desk sergeant have to approve arrest reports, monitor faxes from the Instant Update Unit and deal with other issues for their 9 hour shift. With the manpower shortage across the city, HQ decided to issue an order 2 years ago saying that only 2 officers and one sergeant can work the desk.

It can wear on your nerves, especially if the desk is your assigned position. If you're working the street and you encounter a person who is either drunk or belligerent, you have the discretion as to whether you will give them a report or not. The beauty of the squad car is that you can drive away. I personally do not like to reward bad behavior, and if the person is discourteous and rude, I'll tell them why I'm not going to issue a report - and they can call a sergeant if they don't like it. They can always go to a district station to get their precious, 'magic' piece of paper - the thing that will make their miserable little lives all better.

I didn't witness this incident but the 025 desk had some gang-bangers come in the other day asking "Damn, where my boy be at?" They wanted to know when their compatriot would be released from custody. Apparently when they didn't get the answer that they wanted, one of them told a male desk officer,"Man - fuck you!" The desk officer told the gang-banger to leave, and used some off-color language in order to get the offender to vacate the station.

All this was witnessed by the district commander, who then ordered the 3rd watch watch commander to issue a SPAR for the male desk officer.

Mind you, these gang-bangers came into the station, screaming, cursing and demanding - all the while witnessed by the D/C, and instead of backing up his desk personnel, he stood there and then decided to discipline his officer. The gang-bangers actually committed a misdemeanor crime: Criminal Trespass to State Property (they were ordered to leave the facility and remained in violation of the command). They should have been arrested, but instead a veteran officer was officially disciplined for trying to maintain a semblance of order inside the station.

The rank and file in 025 are none-too-happy about this turn of events. It shows a disregard and a callousness that is unbecoming from a district commander. To take the side of an obnoxious, police-hating gang-banger over your own desk officer is egregious; and is something, quite frankly, that I could see Jody P. Weis doing.

Morale is in the toilet precisely because of these types of knee-jerk responses from our leaders. Maybe if the desk officer had a LAPA card in his pocket, the SPAR wouldn't have been ordered.

28 September 2010

"Get over your anger." So says the billionaire president of Birkshire Hathaway to US taxpayers.

Well, do the taxpayers have a right to be angry?

Certainly, and here's why:

The Federal government is gaining hegemony over the states, and over the individual. Through outrageous spending schemes, and prevarications; such as TARP, Cap and Trade, Fannie/Freddie and two Stimulus packages - the Federal government has attained unheard of power and influence.

* Almost $300 billion stimulus signed by President Bush (and which Senator Obama voted for)

* Almost $800 billion stimulus signed by Barack Hussein Obama

TARP, Cap and Trade, Take over of GM, and the leviathon of Big Government Boondoggles - ObamaCare. That initiative will give 17% of the GDP in government hands. The government NOW controls 51% of the US economy.

Alan Greenspan recently said that the Stimulus packages haven't worked. And the CEO at Intel, Inc. says "Obama just doesn't get it."

All of this goes against the restraints buried in the Constitution. And what do the Democrats do? They circle the wagons and blame "Bush" and the "republicans." The majority of Americans self-identify as conservatives. The majority of Americans don't want ANY of this Big Government expansion - but do the Democrats listen? Do they care? No, they don't because all they want is Power. It's pure Machiavelli and the chief player in this pathetic drama is the Marxist-in-Chief BHO.

Here is a beautifully succinct synopsis by Michael Berry, it's entitled "Why the Democrats have to go"

and this ....

35 Days until Election Day -- please talk to your friends, family and co-workers and inform them that the only antidote to Tyranny is conservatism. With a government that will not accept any limitations on its scope and reach, where will it end? That is the question of the hour. With nothing holding it back, it will continue to grow, and grow and grow - while savaging our individual liberties, and gaining more dominion over its citizenry.

25 September 2010

UPDATE II: Welcome SLC readers, and thanks to Shaved for the link-love --- Apparently Frank Sennett "twittered" 159 times trying to get Joe The Cop's blog shut down. Here is a very nice summary of what happened to Joe here.
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UPDATE: Sun 26Sep - Here is Joe The Cop's original piece.
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Ah, political correctness rears its ugly head within the Ivory Towers of Chicago's media wonks. The elite, specifically editor-n-chief Frank Sennett of Time Out Chicago - have gone on the attack this week against a blogger at the Chicago Tribune's ChicagoNow blog.

"Joe the cop", who writes a blog called Arresting Tales, is in their cross hairs.

This week the erudite cub-reporter had the "audacity" to write a piece entitled, CTA Red Line Shooting: the ghetto shooting template - Arresting Tales

The whole thing was taken down by the time I got to it, but SCC blogged on this and the commentary was razor sharp; as usual.

Joe examined a number of police related shootings, and observed some stark similarities in the stories.

Apparently pointing out those similarities is now 'racist' - according to Frank Sennett at TOC.

You see, the boy-genius-editor-in-chief didn't appreciate the facts that Joe The Cop observed in the news coverage of this story. So Frank did what every other morose and petulant Liberal know-it-all would do: He complained and claimed to be 'offended.' Worse still he leveled the charge of racism at Joe The Cop.

As you know when a Liberal cannot support his beliefs on principle or facts, he resorts to name-calling. So Frank pulled out the MOAB of all labels and posted this over at Time Out Chicago's blog:

The Chicago Tribune’s community blogging product, ChicagoNow, has hosted a hate-filled, racist rant by blogger Joe the Cop entitled “The ghetto shooting template” for three days and counting now. Joe lacks the guts to blog under his real name and is identified as “a detective sergeant in a suburban police department”–so he’s clearly qualified to comment on inner-city policing matters. In his race-baiting post and its equally offensive follow-up, “Joe” mocks both George Lash, 19, who was recently shot and killed by Chicago police on the Red Line, and Lash’s grieving family. This horribly insensitive post, mind you, came before any investigative conclusions about this case had been reached. And he employs the late Mr. Lash (I’m sure “Joe” will be outraged that I dignified the teen’s humanity by calling him Mr., given his statements about how the media coddles these annoying dead ghetto kids) as a rhetorical device for knee-jerk negative stereotyping of every “ghetto” teen killed by the cops. Here’s “Joe”’s kicker, and by kicker, I mean kick in the teeth to every reasonable citizen of this city: “The harsh reality is, George Lash will be a better provider for his family as the subject of a civil lawsuit than he was ever going to be in his adult life.” I guess gutless “Joe” can’t help being such a hateful hump, but you know what, ChicagoNow and its parent, the Chicago Tribune, have editors. I understand that bloggers can get a post up without editing oversight; I have been a paid blogger under exactly those circumstances. But to let this guy’s hateful bile ooze through ChicagoNow’s servers for three full days? Unconscionable.

So here's my 2 cents ---
Cops see things differently. They have to. Their very lives depend on analyzing scenarios and situations that Joe Citizen never has to contemplate. The harsh reality is that George Lash should never have gotten on that train, waving a handgun around and threatening people with death or great bodily harm, and then start fighting with police when they show up on scene. It's as simple as that. Ah, but the ghetto - that rabbit hole of warped sensibilities, is a veritable 5th dimension of space and time, complete with its own rules.

Shouldn't Joe The Cop be allowed, daresay encouraged, to speak from the heart based on his knowledge, skills and abilities? Aren't we writers also artists? I know that Frank Sennett wouldn't have a problem with Bill Ayers defiling the American flag, or going to an art exhibition in which the crucifix is placed in cow urine, right? Aren't those protected acts under our beloved First Amendment? Well how about extending a tiny smidgen of the same courtesy to Joe The Cop! Damn right.

The Sheep don't like the looks of the Sheep-Dog until the Wolf rounds the corner.

And people like Frank Sennett can sit in their 81st floor office, have lunch with their other white Liberal friends and congratulate each other on how "tolerant" they are for "sticking up" for the "oppressed and colonized African Americans" that get "beat by the police" all the time.

Political correctness and multiculturalism are disgusting, and are a real problem in our society.

Michelle Malkin has a great piece on her blog regarding the Ameican victims of Islamist jihadis. She actually wrote the column 7 years ago, but states,"Sadly, I could have written it today."

With the "Blame American At All Costs Crowd" - those unhinged moonbats that buy in to all kinds of ridiculous conspiracy theories - we have 911 Truthers and others who have nothing better to do than spread fictional stories about what really happened on 9/11/01.

One of the best documentaries I have seen is the Naudet brothers (video here) who were down in mid-town Manhattan the day of the murders filming a documentary on the life of a rookie New York Fireman. It's inadvertently become an inside look at what it was like to be down there when the shit hit the fan.

God bless America, and squeeze your children a little tighter today knowing that a significant portion of Muslims agree with the tactics of Mohammed Atta and his terrorist cohorts.

And it is stupid and insensitive to even conceive of placing a Mosque at or near the site of ground Zero. It's appalling that this is even being considered.